Foster Shower Pt 3 (The Last, I Promise)

So I know you are so sad, but this is the last and final installment of the foster shower! Yes I know I dragged this out for a ridiculous amount of time, but really don't rain on my parade! 

So this is all about the items that we bought using our gift cards from the shower. It was items we didn't get, but still needed/ wanted. Luckily we had a lot of people give us gift cards and so we were really able to get a lot of items and saved ourselves a TON of money. 

So after my big post about the car seat we had registered for, I ended up getting a totally different seat. You see this one was awesome and on clearance and yea...

See how nice and gender neutral the pattern is.

Here is the pack and play. Again, not what we originally registered for. Really I cannot resist a Target clearance section.

Fun little lion on the pack and play.

This little item is again one of my favorites for the baby room. Honestly, I kind of want one for our room. It is a sound machine and projector in one. It has 3 different discs for projecting on the wall and 6 different sounds! Until the kids arrive, it may find itself in our room.

Now I know that pacifiers are really an item that varies from baby to baby, but I couldn't pass these babies up. Too cute. Plus whether our child is a boy or girl, they will like football...

Well there you go. A summary of everything. Now clearly I didn't include every item we got or every gift we received in this post, but you can get a good idea of what we got. This was just intended to share with those of you who couldn't be there. 

If you saw anything you want a review on or opinions on, please let me know. 

Foster Shower Pt 2

As promised, here is the second installment of the foster shower. This will be covering the items we received as gifts from our amazingly generous friends and family. 

This drying rack is actually Mark's number one requested item on the registry. He saw it and thought it was the coolest thing ever. The branch and flower accessories for hanging items on make it even more fun. So much more appealing than a traditional drying rack on the counter.

This activity table was one of the awesome gifts my sister got for us. It is great for sitting or standing because the legs are easily removed. 

This has to be one of my absolute favorite gifts from my sister. The Ergo baby carrier was actually not on my registry, but I had my eye on it for some time. Using a baby carrier is a priority to me so having a quality carrier is going to make things so much easier. 

Now I know I am clearly not going to be breast feeding my foster kiddos, but I am a huge fan of the Boppy pillow! They are great for those kiddos that are just learning to sit up and even for tummy time!

World's softest blanket. Hands down!!!

I saw this and fell in love with it. The kiddos are going to need a security blanket type item. I thought this was perfect because it is a blanket and stuffed animal in one (similar). Now I should probably invest in multiple of these to send with the kiddos when they return home.

Now I didn't actually receive this at the shower, but my bosses daughter had given it to me to use. It is a video baby monitor. We have just played around with this a bit, but so far, I love it! 

Just a sample of a few of my favorite boys clothing items from the shower!

Same with a few of the favorite girls items!

The most common gift of the shower BOOKS! This bin is completely full of books along with several shelves full of books. I joked that our kids would be reading to us by the time they were 2! 

So this is another favorite from the shower. I saw this diaper bag and fell in LOVE! My co-workers went in and bought this for me. This silly little bag brought me SO much joy!

So now you know more about my gifts from my shower than you ever wanted to know! I am sure you will sleep better at night seeing what I got. I am sure you are holding your breath in anticipation for part 3... the spending of the gift cards. ;)

Foster Shower Part 1

After weeks of anticipation, I have finally had our foster parent shower! Let me start by saying my friends Lauren and Erin (the hosts) did an amazing job and I am overwhelmingly grateful for them stepping up and hosting this for me. I actually even cried at my shower when I was thanking them for hosting. It was very embarrassing.

Because I have so much to cover I am going to break this down into three parts. The first part is going to be the actual shower itself. It will tell you about the theme, the decor, and all the activities. The second will be the gifts. The third and final will be how we spent our gift cards.

Saturday was an absolutely wonderful day for me. I got to sleep in a bit. Slowly get up, straighten up the house a bit, and relax. It was a very un-rushed morning which is exactly what I needed with all the excitement that was soon to be coming my way.

Once my Mom and Dad came in from Las Vegas I took the chance to show them the nursery and some of the things we had accumulated already. Then Mark and my Dad were off to the Arizona Cardinals pre-season training while my Mom and I went to the quilt store. My mother is a very talented quilter and I had a couple projects I wanted her to make that we needed fabric for. After a successful fabric store run, we were off to the shower.

I am not even kidding when I say I walked in and was blown away. The little details they had put into the shower were amazing! It was themed after a book called A Blessing From Above.

Here is Amazon's description:

 Every night before she goes to sleep, a kangaroo prays under the stars for a baby to love and hold. One day, as she rests under a tree, a baby bird falls out of its crowded nest—plop!—right into her pouch!

Can you think of a better theme for a foster/ adoption shower? I swear those girls should go into the business of party planning. It was beautiful! They even created a hash tag that everyone could link there pictures to from the shower. They really thought of everything. One look at the pictures and you will see.

**Note: I am a total genius and forgot my camera so these photo's are all taken with my cell phone camera. I just knew you were going to ask about my amazing photography skills!

These were on the dessert table.

How adorable is this sign?

The beverage table.

Just a view of some of the guests during game time.

So this does a horrible job of showing the worlds most adorable sugar cookies that my sister in-law got for the shower. They were an assortment of birds, bird houses, and this cookie in the center of the platter. 

Ok so this is not the most flattering picture of me or Mark, but at least you can kinda see our amazingly awesome and cheesy foster care shirts! While Mark didn't attend the shower, he did show up after the fact in this. :)

If and when some "real" pictures show up from the shower that were not taken on a camera, I will be sure to add some of those. For now, enjoy these beauties. I know, I know, I really should look into photography as a career choice. 

Glitter Eye Liner and Cupcakes for Breakfast

So I know I promised pictures and all kinds of fun stuff from my foster shower on Saturday, but you can wait one more day. Why?

 Because today is my BIRTHDAY!

Yes, I am one of those obnoxious people who makes sure EVERYONE knows it is my birthday and celebrates for almost the entire month.

So today I am not going to worry about getting the post about the shower together. Instead, I am wearing my gold glitter eyeliner for work (which is definitely more of an evening look, but I like it)and eating cupcakes for breakfast! See you tomorrow.

Update

UPDATE: I will start with the update because lets face it, foster care is the point of this blog, not all the other random thoughts that go through my head.

We got a call today and we officially have our first licensing interview scheduled! This will take place August 1st and will last approximately 3-4 hours. Yikers!!! I cannot imagine an interview lasting that long. Besides, what on earth do we have 3-4 hours worth to talk about. I feel like we have answered every single question we possibly could.

The good news is that I really like our licensing worker. I am going to refer to her as L for privacy reasons. She seems very nice and it sounds like we are going to get along great. I think as much as it can get annoying at times, she appreciates my over prepared and on top of things attitude about everything.

The bad news is that after L comes out and completes her home study and submit it, we are looking at 4-8 weeks because of how backed up the Office of Licensing, Certification, and Regulation (OLCR) is. The is depressing because I thought we had days, until we got a kiddo. Boy was I wrong!

In other news, my FOSTER SHOWER is tomorrow!!! That is right folks, just one more sleeps. I am so incredibly excited! I cannot wait to share pictures of the event, and then a haul of all the things I got and all the things I bought with my gift cards (I already have a few from guests that couldn't make it).

Waiting Game

So at this point, Mark and I have been assigned a licensing worker. What this means is that we have completed everything with our agency. Being assigned a licensing worker is the final step before being officially licensed and ready to accept a placement.

The bad news is that we are now just waiting on the system which is at best unpredictable. We could be looking at days or weeks. We just don't know. This is frustrating because I am a total planner. I am climbing up the walls in anticipation!

To help pass the time, my amazing friends Lauren and Erin have thrown me a foster shower! The shower will be this Saturday and I am unbelievably excited. Once we found out that we would likely not ever have our own biological children, I thought I lost the chance to ever have a baby shower. Thanks to my amazing friends, I still get to have one.

We have registered for gifts here, but we decided to also do something different. We encouraged our friends and family to use this registry as just a guide for finding gently used items as well. This way they have options for both new or used items. The response thus far has been positive. I still realize that because we are going to be licensed for such a range (newborn-2), gift giving is difficult, so gift cards will likely be the gift of choice for most. I think this is great because once we do have a need for an item, we will have gift cards to help us with those purchases.

This is one item we have an immediate need for. Like, I will run out and purchase the day of the shower if I don't get it. We have had two friends either sell or donate old infant car seats to us, but this would be much more versatile. Plus, the price is right. Anyone used this model? Thoughts?

What are we going to do with all of this stuff if we can't or don't end up using it (wrong size, too old and/or young)? I am so glad you asked... even if you didn't really. Well if it is new and we have gift receipts, obviously return it for something we can use, but if it used, we plan to donate it. There are several organizations for foster children that would benefit greatly from these donations! We foster families gotta stick together!